No! If you are admitted to UGA, then you can choose "Atmospheric Sciences" as your major in Athena. It's as simple as that.

Our program provides an AMS and federally recognized curriculum taught by acclaimed professors recognized for both their teaching and research. Additionally, because our program is interdisciplinary and focused in Geography, students are exposed to a broader set of academic coursework, training, and experiences that make them competitive compared to students who complete a traditional atmospheric sciences curriculum. In addition to the typical meteorology curriculum, students may choose coursework in Geographic Information Science (GIS), cartographic/remote sensing methods, climatology/climate sciences, and societal/human implications of weather and climate. Because we are located in Georgia, our students have easy access to and interactions with major weather-related employers such as The Weather Channel, commercial TV stations in Atlanta (which is a top-10 media market), Delta Air Lines, the National Weather Service in Peachtree City, GA, and other organizations.

UGA does not provide specific atmospheric sciences scholarships, however, it gives over $6 million in scholarships each year, many of them merit-based. Visit this website for more information.

Also, the American Meteorological Society offers Freshman Undergraduate Scholarships, with an application deadline around the beginning of February of your senior year in high school. Two entering-freshman UGA students have won these AMS scholarships during the program's history. 

No. Our courses are taught in-person and there is no distance learning option at this time.  The Department of Geosciences at Mississippi State University offers an online meteorology degree. Several UGA alumni have been/are faculty in Mississippi State's program.

Yes, even without pre-college course credits such as AP, dual enrollment, and/or IB. 

Students who take five years usually fall into one or more of these categories:

1. Transfer student who needed to take University/Franklin College/Core courses during their third year
2. Students who have to retake one or more MATH or PHYS class and throw their schedules out of sequence
3. Health or family concerns.

Yes, about 40% of our students transfer into our program from another college or university. Please be in communication with our undergraduate advisor very early in your college career if you think you are transferring, so that your coursework will transfer correctly and permit you to graduate in a total of 4 years. See our 2-Year Plan for transfer students for guidance, as well.

Yes, our degree meets both Federal requirements for civil service employment as a meteorologist (e.g., with the National Weather Service, NOAA, NASA, FAA, etc.) and the American Meteorological Society's recommended atmospheric sciences coursework for completion of the Certified Broadcast Meteorologist (CBM).

Additionally, because it is recommended that our students also attain a degree in Geography, our students are trained with broad skills in Geographic Information Science (GIS) and social sciences. The Association of American Geographers (AAG) reports that median salaries and job growth for geography continue to outpace the average in other disciplines.

In the federal sector, the National Weather Service (NWS)’s Weather Ready Nation is “building community resilience in the face of increasing vulnerability to extreme weather and water events.” NWS managers are increasingly asking for a new generation of atmospheric scientists versed in meteorology, GIS, social sciences, and communication. Our program has also experienced increased interest from the U.S. Forest Service (Athens), Department of Energy (Augusta), and FEMA (Atlanta). Such agencies have emerging needs for broadly trained atmospheric scientists or meteorologists with cross-disciplinary perspectives.

Our graduates have gone on to positions in: broadcast meteorology; the military; the National Weather Service; emergency management; aviation; the energy/utilities industry; environmental consulting and advocacy; research; and teaching, among other pursuits.

The trend in the broadcast field is toward hiring meteorologists rather than journalists. Most station managers now hire broadcast meteorologists who either have the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Certified Broadcast Meteorology (CBM) seal or are qualified to apply for the CBM. The CBM is administered by the AMS and requires a comprehensive test, in addition to an on-camera presentation. It is important to note that you will not be allowed to take the CBM test if you do not have certain core atmospheric sciences coursework on your transcript. Our program's curriculum meets this requirement.

Yes, in fact, a 3-credit internship or research experience is required for our major and also satisfies the University's Experiential Learning requirement. We strongly emphasize internships and assist students in finding them. Our students have interned at the NWS/NOAA, The Weather Channel, CNN, Delta Air Lines, the FAA, and local television stations in Atlanta, Birmingham, and other markets. Several of our students have won NOAA Hollings Scholarships which provide an all-expenses-paid internship at a NOAA facility. Others have applied for and gotten NWS Pathways internships at NWS offices around the nation. Our students interested in graduate school have attended NSF-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs) around the nation, which are also all-expenses-paid. 

Learn more about our internships here.

It's about 50/50. The most recent statistics show that 47% of our ATSC alumni have gone to graduate or professional school; of those, about three-quarters went into something atmospheric sciences-related. The others pursued graduate degrees in GIScience, MBAs, data analytics, law school, etc.  Of those who go into the atmospheric sciences for graduate school (about 35% of all graduates), they have attended many of the top meteorology/atmospheric science graduate programs in the nation, including Colorado State, Florida State, Penn State, and Texas A&M, among other programs. Those who go directly into the workforce upon graduation are most often entering the fields of broadcast meteorology, GIS analysts, the military, and private-sector (but not broadcast) meteorology. During the 2010s it became very difficult to enter the National Weather Service with just an undergraduate degree in meteorology/atmospheric sciences, but in the 2020s it has become more common.